


A Night in the Whispering Axe Tavern

by lyssajanet



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls Online
Genre: Elder Scrolls Online: Greymoor, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Vestige character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyssajanet/pseuds/lyssajanet
Summary: Skylar demands that they stop in Morthal following Fennorian's rescue from Tzinghalis's Tower and rest. She wants to help Fennorian heal from his trauma as best she can, but he doesn't want to think about it. He wants to know more about her instead.(aka I write about Skylar's backstory and how Fenn reacts)
Relationships: Fennorian (Elder Scrolls)/Original Character(s), Fennorian (Elder Scrolls)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

Lyris, Fennorian, and Skylar all stay the night in Morthal after rescuing Fennorian. There was no way Skylar was going to leave him, and he needed a night to recover and rest before heading to Solitude regardless of what Lyris seemed to think. The glare of a 5'4" blonde Breton has more power than one would think.

Lyris leaves the two of them to talk after realizing how much better Fennorian was looking while spending time with the Breton. Plus, maybe one of them would finally confess and she wouldn’t have to watch them stare longingly anymore, though she claimed she needed to sharpen her axe.

They both lean against the railing of the second floor, looking down at the other patrons as the evening comes to a close. Better for Fennorian to keep his distance from mortals while still in a delicate state, both for their safety and his mental wellbeing. Everyone down there seems so, vibrant. Lively. Skylar sees his eyes have glazed over - he’s not fully here right now. “Do you want to talk about it, or not think about it?”

“What?” he asks, coming back and turning to her.

Skylar shuffles a bit, straightening up. “Whenever I’d get upset about something, my momma and aunt Gabi, they’d ask if it’d be more helpful for me to be able to vent and talk about whatever was bugging me, or if it wasn’t something I was ready to talk about yet, they’d talk about something else to distract me. Really helped me a lot.”

“That’s very wise of them.”

“They’re very wise people.” Skylar smiles softly, reminded again at how much she owes to them for all they did for her. “I don’t know where I’d be without them.” She tells herself she’s going to remember to stop in to visit her aunt next time they’re in Solitude, even if she knows she’ll forget. Her shoulders slouch as she sighs and leans back down to watch the last few patrons enjoy what remains of their evening. “So, talk or distract?”

He doesn’t respond right away. Then, “Distract.” She’s about to ask if there’s anything in particular he wants to talk about when he speaks up again. “Tell me about yourself. What did you do before… all this? Who were you?” He motions with his hand in the air. Good, Skylar thinks, that’s more out of him that we’ve seen since his rescue.

She blushes with whatever blood is still in her body, now that his attention is on her. Her eyes stay on the patrons, ignoring Fennorian’s attention as best she can. “No one special. Just an apprentice portal mage in Glenumbra, studying with my aunt. I came here to join up with her and the Antiquarian Circle since it seemed like a nice change of pace, but I’ve been with the Mages Guild full time since I was 17. Before that… well, most of the stories from my adolescence are ones I regret.”

“How old _are_ you? My apologies but you seem so much… older that you look.”

“I’ll try to take that as a compliment. 22.” She angles her body toward him, only to realize they were much closer than she thought. “How about you?”

“26, though I was turned at 20.” His eyes don’t meet hers, but they rarely did when he was at his best.

Skylar lets out a laugh. “So I’m older than you physically?”

“I suppose you are.” He glances at her for but a moment before looking off to the side again, some color starting to come back to his paler than usual skin. But there.

A smile.

She knows he’ll have nightmares tonight, and tomorrow, and probably for a long while. Then things will get better for a time, only for the memories to come rushing back when you least expect it and make you think your work at healing is ruined. But a smile is progress. Baby steps.


	2. Chapter 2

They stand in a comfortable silence for a while after that; still close but Skylar doesn’t see a need to step aside. Only a few patrons of the tavern remain, most beginning to head to their homes or bedrolls on the floor. Skylar wonders why they are still here and not headed for Solitude, and absentmindedly rubs at her arm, feeling the ripped fabric of her bracer but not thinking about it.

“Is your arm okay?” Fennorian asks looking down at it. He might be shorter than Lyris, but everyone is. He has nearly a head over her when he isn’t hunched over some notes.

Once she is more present, the memory of the injury comes to mind. Of smashing her entire arm halfway through the control panel of Tzinghalis’s machine with her newfound vampire strength while panicking about not knowing how to free Fennorian from its confines. “I’ll be fine,” she says, smiling at him before catching the concerned look in his eyes and not being able to look at him anymore. “We heal faster, no? It’ll be okay by the morning.” She doesn’t want to talk about it, doesn’t want to remind Fennorian of his trauma when he said he wanted to be distracted from it.

“That doesn’t mean you should have to suffer in the meantime. May I?” He holds out a hand, not taking her arm but silently asking for it. Skylar raises an eyebrow and holds it over Fennorian’s hand, curious as to what he plans to do.

With his left, he supports her wrist, and with his right, he pinches the end of her gloves, straightening her curled fingers and pulling the glove and tattered bracer off. The action stings as the fabric rubs against what she didn’t realize were cuts and abrasions, which luckily distracts her from thinking about how they’re practically holding hands. She hears him hiss in a breath as he takes in the state of her arm, wincing despite not being the patient. It doesn’t make her feel much better, but the fact that he cares so much makes her heart twinge a little. 

“It’s going to be alright,” he says after a moment, moving his hands to support her elbow as well and leaning down closer to the arm, “but you should have said something.”

“I didn’t want to be a bother. Not after...” She remembers he didn’t want to think about it.

He looks up from examining the topside of her forearm and smiles softly. “After everything you did for me, I think you’re allowed to mention an acute injury.” Skylar wants to say it’s not his fault, but holds back. “I know just what to do now.” Fennorian straightens back up and places one of his hands to hover just above her arm. That hands then begins to glow with the tell-tale sign of restoration magic. She thinks to remind him that she’s a vampire now, but then... she feels the tingle of restoration magic that she remembered from when she was a mortal.

“I thought restoration spells didn’t work on us,” she says in a hushed, amazed voice. 

“There are ones specific to the undead, but it’s a rather closely kept secret. I’d be happy to teach you sometime but I’m not much of a mage myself. If I had an alchemy setup however...” he trails off, still healing her arm but mind going elsewhere. In his element, Skylar thinks and tries to hold back a smile. “A poultice would do more immediate good than a healing potion, but I cannot tell if there is a fracture or not here. Like I said, not much of a mage. So we cannot rule out the effectiveness of one. If you have a lingering health potion anywhere in your bag, I’d recommend diluting it by about half and taking that before you head off to bed.”

The tingling sensation continues but even Skylar can tell the spell is weak. Fennorian isn’t exactly being modest about his skills as a healer, but she isn’t exactly about to take her arm away from him either way. She wants to enjoy the time near him as long as it will last. “I think I have one, but tell me how you’d make one.” Alchemy is one of his interests, that might get him distracted.

He laughs softly. “Any other time, I’d gladly blather on about alchemy well past the point of the listener being interested. But right now, I’m just... I don’t have it in me, to be honest. I’d much rather hear about you.”

Tricky boy, she thinks, but understands. She still feels the butterflies in her stomach jump with his attention back on her. “Like I said, I - wasn’t really that interesting. Just an apprentice studying portal magic with my aunt. I was probably more interesting when I was a teenager,” she laughs.

“What makes you say that?” he asks.

She feels something jolt in her, but brushes it aside. “Well, you have to promise not to judge...” she trails off to get him interested. People always have such amusing reactions when she tells them.

He places his hand over his heart. “You have my word.” Then he realizes he stopped the spell and gets back to it.

Something in her makes her hesitate for a moment, but she already hyped it up, so she might as well bite the arrow. “Alright well, in my youth... I was in a Sanguine cult.”

“ _YOU-!_ ” He jostles her arm unintentionally, causing a twinge of pain to go through it that must have shown on her face, but immediately realizes what he had done and Skylar feels a burst of healing magic go into her arm that must have been draining. “I’m sorry - but _you were in a Sanguine cult_?”

That’s what she was afraid of, she realizes. She pushes a smile forward but already feels the shame building, of the one person she liked since feeling like she had finally moved past and healed from the cult judging her for her past. What was she expecting? Especially from someone as sweet and innocent as Fennorian? And why does it bother her so much? She hasn’t let anyone’s judgments of the person she was or the things she did bother her since she first got out, so why does she care so much what a nerdy vampire alchemist thinks of her?

She knows why.

“Yeah,” she smiles, but looks down in the corner, feeling the twinge of tears behind her eyes threaten to become visible. “I was a real wild child, haha.” Skylar sniffs and hopes she passes it off as normal. The cold, perhaps. 

Skylar desperately wants him to say something, but what? What do you say to your friend who just joked about being in a daedric cult as a teenager? What does she even want him to say? She wishes he didn’t still have a hold on her arm, wasn’t still healing her out of the infinite kindness of his heart so she could get away without making a scene. The bile of word vomit threatens to come forth to fill the silence after what feels like hours but had to have only been seconds, when Fennorian asks, “H-how did you get out?”

An easy question. “My momma pulled me out when she finally caught on. I think she knew before that, but didn’t want me to hate her for trying to keep me away. I did, but eventually I realized she was right. We moved far enough away that I couldn’t talk to any of them, and she put me to work in the Mages Guild with Aunt Gabi. Gave me something to focus on, someone to check in on me, a new start.”

“That was rather brave of you.”

She scoffed. “It really wasn’t. My mom and aunts did all the real work.”

“You were still a child back then, one can’t discount the work you put in in staying away all this time.” She thinks about the times she was tempted, when she indulged, being afraid of indulgence and not being able to tell happiness apart from hedonism. Worrying every time she has a drink if it will push her back over the edge, and now worrying about giving into the bloodlust beyond what is necessary. 

But his words do make her think about all the times she stayed away. How she has remained strong and true, and always gotten back up when she fell down. 

“That is something to be proud of,” he says, Skylar feeling his thumb rub against her elbow.

And she wants to believe him. But she still worries, and blurts out, “Please don’t let this change how you think of me.” She tries to bite back the words but it’s too late. 

He stammers out, “I-I-I would never!” much louder than they had been talking, starling Skylar, but it doesn’t appear that anyone noticed them. He also didn’t jostle her arm at all this time. His voice is lower when he continues, “If my reaction from earlier gave any indication otherwise, I apologize. I promised that I wouldn’t judge and you trusted me with that - not that there is anything to judge you for, that is.” His gazes turns back down to her arm, which Skylar realizes does look a lot better than before. The superficial cuts have all closed and healed and she thinks some of the ache deep within her arm has dissipated. She tries to make a note to ask him about that spell later. “You are the same person now as you were before, though you have trusted me with something deeply personal. I won’t betray that trust.” She wants to kiss him right on his cheekbone right then but holds back. Fennorian clears his throat. “I think that should be enough for now, but you should still have that diluted potion.”

While she appreciates the advice, she knows she’s not going to sleep yet. She had already planned this before they settled into the tavern. Fennorian still needs more blood, and while he could survive until they reached Solitude, she knows he would be miserable. But Skylar has no way of acquiring ethically given blood, and she’s not about to trick him into breaking his code. Gwendis and Adusa-daro said they would still be near Greymoor Castle for a few days, making sure no one got in and everyone got out. Certainly, they would have some. 

It would take all night to make the journey into and out of Blackreach, but she had to do it. For Fennorian. She smiles and says she will, that they should both get to sleep. As soon as he is out, she plans to leave. Maybe leave Lyris a note, just in case. 

**Author's Note:**

> @ daggerfall on tumblr, home of the number 2 fennorian stan


End file.
